Bit for byte, Linux is still best value!

There is a saying I once heard which goes like this. No matter how big your hard drive is you never have enough space. Lets face it. Humans are pack rats and information junkies. When it comes to computers we never want to delete anything. Who knows, maybe one day in the future I will want to read that ten year old email about member enlargement again :)

As you know however, emails do not take up a large amount of space. From all the people I know the most amount of space is taken up by their music and movie collections. It seems that people collect more music and movies that they could even watch or listen to in their lifetimes. Then, just like Oliver Twist, they want more! So hard disks become full, and space becomes a premium.

Lets say you are not the movie or song collector type. Perhaps you are a hard core gamer. I bet your computer is stuffed to the gills with games and you still don't have enough room on your hard disk for the games you wish to play. So you are constantly uninstalling and re/installing loved and new games. Then, depending on the operating system, having to reformat and reload that operating system because it slows down too much.

What's that? I hear a complaint? You are not a movie or audio buff and you don't play games? I agree with you there :) You may be like me, I don't have games on my computer and I cannot remember the last time I listened to an mp3. Yet I still have space problems. Why? because I have a lot of virtual machines on my computer for testing programs I write. Not just virtual machines, emulators as well and wine (we all know that Wine Is Not an Emulator :) Actually these virtual machines take up more space than several dvd sized movies, each! Why? Generally due to taking snapshots and clones for different purposes on top of the size requirements of the operating systems installed in those virtual machines.

This brings me to my title statement. Bit for Byte, Linux is undoubtedly, unequivocally and definitely the best value operating system around. I do not mean value in the monetary sense. That is self evident. I am talking about available functionality verses hard disk real estate.

Piffle you may say. The operating system takes up less than 15% of my hard disk space you may scoff. Still, 15% is still quite a large chunk of hard disk real estate. That is also not taking into consideration the extra programs which need to be installed to enable that operating system to be useful. When you add in an office suite, a picture manipulation program and possibly an email program at the very least to enable the computer to become useable the disk space taken up is getting close to a quarter of a hundred gigabyte hard disk. That is simply too much.

With a normal Linux installation, including everything missing from proprietary operating system installs, the total amount of hard disk space taken, using a hundred gigabyte hard disk for example, is less than 5% of the total hard disk space. This means that there is enough extra room for five full size dvd movies or a couple of the latest games or in my case, another couple of Linux virtual machines. That is no small chunk of change! :)

As a real world example with my computer, the one I am using right now to type this post, uses less hard disk space at eleven gigabytes than a freshly installed proprietary operating system and I don't just mean microsofts! In addition I also have a full size office suite, a graphical manipulation program, a few programming IDE's, several web browsers, email programs, the usual video and audio programs, internet communication programs (ie. skype etc.), virtual machine programs and the development libraries for crosscompiling, emulators and wine. In other words a fully loaded beast of a machine.

I challenge you! Take a look at your own computers system directories, just the program or application directories and the operating system directories, no data directories. Then calculate how much space they consume and post them in the comments below. If any normally configured proprietary system currently available uses less space and has the same functionality than Linux does I will post a video of me eating a hat!

The gauntlet is thrown, the dukes are up. Is there anyone around who can dispute my statement that bit for byte, Linux is the best value?

Related White Papers

1 Comments

I doubt that you'll have to make any serious adjustments to your diet, but if it does happen, a Red Fedora might be appropriate. :-)

I can easily understand the complaints of disk space consumption. I accumulate large quantities of software in Linux, it would take me a while to tally it all up, but I am easily over 60 assorted programs that I use on something like a regular basis by now. The last time I tallied the directories containing the OS and apps, the whole thing took up less space than the Windows 7 I had to stuff into a VM for a project. Mind you, I hadn't installed anything at that point, just the W7. Since I'm about to upgrade my Slackware to 13.37 (I know, but life got busy) I can see about comparing the sizes again, but if history is any guide, I think I'll still have less space taken up with all of my Linux software than just a W7 load.

And as for pack rat... I have files time-stamped in the 80s. I have complete DOS systems running under various VMs for some of my really old software. My system has 13TB of storage and I'm running out of room again. Part of that last figure is due to having VMs with a dozen assorted OSes being tinkered with. I will confess though, that most of them don't get much use.

Disclaimer: Blog contents express the viewpoints of their independent authors and
are not reviewed for correctness or accuracy by
Toolbox for IT. Any opinions, comments, solutions or other commentary
expressed by blog authors are not endorsed or recommended by
Toolbox for IT
or any vendor. If you feel a blog entry is inappropriate,
click here to notify
Toolbox for IT.